Borderlands three: The Story So Far

There’s so much occurring on Pandora over the course of 4 video games, so it’s comprehensible in case you want a refresher. This is the story of Borderlands thus far, in as easy phrases as we might make it.

Welcome to Pandora:

This lawless planet drew the eye of the mega-corps after they heard tales of an historic vault stuffed with alien treasure. The hunt for these vaults attracted numerous mercenaries, higher referred to as “Vault Hunters” (I guess you’ll be able to’t guess what their specialty is).

Ultimately the hunters Roland, Brick, Mordecai, and Lilith arrive on Pandora, lead by a mysterious A.I. referred to as Angel. Lilith is what’s identified in-world as a Siren, certainly one of six ladies in the entire galaxy with specialised psychic powers, however that’s not tremendous necessary… but.

The Vault Hunters be a magnet for Patrica Tannis, a scientist finding out the vaults. She reveals that the vault can solely be opened as soon as each two centuries with one thing referred to as a vault key. The one for this vault, she says, has sadly been damaged and its items are held by a bunch of bandits throughout Pandora.

The 4 Vault Hunters kill all of the bandits, assemble the important thing and the vault is opened — revealing a large tentacle monster that had been imprisoned inside referred to as the Destroyer. After all, the Vault Hunters defeat it, solely to find that the vault’s legendary treasure is nowhere to be discovered.

Opening the vault triggered the expansion of a treasured alien factor referred to as Eridium all throughout Pandora. This attracted the Hyperion company, the most important and strongest mega-corp, together with a humble company upstart named Jack, or John as some name him, working aboard their moon base (properly, it is referred to as a moon base, nevertheless it’s really an area station) referred to as Helios. That is the place Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is available in.

Issues swiftly go awry for John/Jack when Colonel Zarpedon and her rogue PMC the Misplaced Legion, seizes management of Helios with a purpose to stop Hyperion from opening a vault on Elpis, Pandora’s moon, by zapping it with the large laser. John enlists 4 new vault hunters – together with Lilith and Roland – to save lots of Elpis from sure doom and open the vault.

From right here, a bunch of loopy shit occurs: Jack builds a robotic military to retake helios, some Borderlands 1 characters present up for fan service, you meet some aliens referred to as Eridians and Zarpedon will get loopy glowy powers from them, she will get defeated and we be taught the station’s laser is definitely the attention of that enormous Destroyer factor from earlier, then Jack reveals that he’s really a power-mad jerkwad hellbent on company dominance, however that’s probably not a giant shock, now could be it?

Lilith and Roland bail and at last our heroes make their method into the vault. After the hunters kill the large sentinel guardian inside, Jack finds a floating runestone that exhibits him a maddening imaginative and prescient of the longer term together with the places of dozens of different vaults — together with one proper there on Pandora. He goes a bit loopy from the imaginative and prescient, however then Jack will get actually nuts when Lilith exhibits up and sucker-punches that huge ol’ vault image proper into his face.

This brings us to Borderlands 2, the place the now-president of Hyperion and formally villainous Good-looking Jack is luring vault hunters to Pandora — hunters like Salvador, Maya, Axton, and Zero — to kill them and preserve anybody else from discovering the opposite vault earlier than he does. In all probability not the most effective plan, however the man who’s making dummy variations of himself simply to mess with folks earlier than they explode in all probability doesn’t care about sound logic that a lot.

In any case, the near-dead Vault Hunters are discovered by the final remaining CL4P-TP unit — there was this entire robotic rebellion after Borderlands 1 and so they all needed to get scrapped — and these new adventurers contacted by the identical mysterious Angel that had helped the unique Vault Hunters. She guides them to Sanctuary, a base of operations for the Crimson Raiders, an anti-Hyperion resistance pressure led by Roland.

They shortly be taught vault secret is being transported by way of practice, which they derail and rob with the assistance of explosives-obsessed tween Tiny Tina. After all, it seems the important thing was a ruse and Jack had it the entire time so as an alternative the gang will get to battle the vault-hunter-turned-killer-cyborg Wilhelm. Our heroes handle to make use of Wilhelm’s robo-power core to defend Sanctuary from Jack’s retaliatory moonstrike, however they shortly get double-crossed by Angel, who it seems is definitely a Siren working for Jack. Additionally she’s his daughter or one thing? Although that kinda simply feels tacked on to make him additional villain-ey.

Lilith makes use of her super-duper siren powers to teleport Sanctuary to the opposite facet of the planet for safekeeping, and the Vault Hunters be taught that Jack is syphoning Angel’s energy to cost his key and open the vault. They serve her a hearty plate of mercy-killing, however Jack kills Roland in retaliation and captures Lilith to cost the important thing in Angel’s place, and the Vault of the Warrior is opened. The vault hunters kill the large lava monster inside, then off Jack and rescue Lilith. When she makes an attempt to destroy the vault key, she prompts one other a map revealing vaults on totally different worlds scattered all through the galaxy similar to Jack noticed earlier.

A 12 months later, Hyperion begins looking for a brand new vault. A good-looking jack fan named Ryhs heads to Pandora to purchase a Vault Key, however whereas attempting to buy the important thing from native con artist and thief Fiona, bandits steal the cost and the important thing seems to be faux, as a result of Fiona’s a con artist. And a thief. After failing to retrieve the stolen cash, Rhys and Fiona encounter an outdated Atlas vault looking undertaking and accidently installs an AI that zaps a replica of the very lifeless Good-looking Jack’s character proper into Rhys’ mind.

Ryhs companions up with Fiona to pursue the undertaking, codenamed Gortys [gortis], which seems to be a robotic designed to find the roaming Vault of the Traveler. AI Jack leads Rhys and Fiona to Jack’s outdated workplace on Helios to get an improve for Gortys. Jack-dos 95 tips Rhys into importing his A.I. into Helios’ methods so he might take management of Hyperion as soon as once more, however Rhys disrupts the station’s energy core and sends it crashing onto the floor of Pandora as an alternative.

In the meantime, a totally upgraded Gortys summons the Vault and the Traveler. Rhys, Fiona,Gortys and a small military of survivors from the Helios crash unite to take down the Traveler. After its defeat, the vault is opened. Fiona and Rhys enter the Vault and disappear, by no means to be seen once more — no less than till Rhys exhibits up within the trailer for Borderlands three.

And that’s the place we’re at now! You’re all caught up. For extra on Borderlands three, try our super-detailed breakdown of the reveal trailer and our hands-on preview.

Brian Malkiewicz is a video producer for IGN, and he likes Borderlands method an excessive amount of. When you’re in search of somebody to nerd out about Borderlands with, comply with him on Twitter.